In Juncker’s European Commission, Dog Owners Outnumber Cat Lovers

By

Valentina Pop

Aug 9, 2015 9:00 am ET

The Internet may be made of cats, but in the European Commission, the European Union executive, it’s dogs and their masters who are in a majority.

Leading the way is commission supremo Jean-Claude Juncker and a self-confessed “friend of Greece”: His dog, Plato, was rescued by a German organization from a Greek island and is now living in Luxembourg. Any parallels with the Greek crisis, Greece’s German creditors and the Luxembourg-based eurozone bailout fund are purely coincidental.

Mr. Juncker’s right-hand man, Frans Timmermans, is also the owner of an adopted dog. His white dog Ouzo, adopted from an animal shelter in Maastricht, last month got a playmate, Aoife – a black Labrador bought from a Dutch breeder. When he posted the news on Facebook, “proudly” announcing the new family member, over 25,000 people liked the picture.

With these two initial findings, Real Time Brussels set out to inquire: Are you more of a dog or a cat commissioner?

Over the jump is a complete breakdown of cat vs. dog owners in the Juncker commission.